I know, It's the LAW...so I shouldn't question it

Happened in Mass. too. I think it was in Seekonk. A guy owned a gym and was physically hiding in the ceilinc to watch women in the locker room. They couldn't do much to him because he was the owner of the property. I'll see if I can find the story later.

jpete wrote:Happened in Mass. too. I think it was in Seekonk. A guy owned a gym and was physically hiding in the ceilinc to watch women in the locker room.

& man was it hot & cramped in that ceiling!!
(& all that steam coming up fogging up your binoculars.........& the pipes clanging......&........ )

If the phone call originates in a foreign country, or is to a foreign country, and involves a known terrorist or an associate of a known terrorist, the call falls under FISA. I for one have no problem with known terrorists' calls being intercepted and monitored, recorded. I have no problem with them not being told about it. I have no problem with the government using whatever evidence they obtain as a result of those calls. Anything not involving terrorism is "forbidden". Any action, or release of information, not related directly to the terrorism under investigation should result in a very long jail sentence.

Calls inside the United States, no matter who they're between, require a warrant to eavesdrop. If not prior, then very quickly afterward, in "exigent circumstances". They should.

LeonMSPT wrote:If the phone call originates in a foreign country, or is to a foreign country, and involves a known terrorist or an associate of a known terrorist, the call falls under FISA.

You & I both know (or should know) that NSA has been monitoring everything & then they just rubber stamp it all...""Suspected Terrorist Files"...End of story.

LeonMSPT wrote:I for one have no problem with known terrorists' calls being intercepted and monitored,

Depends on who is deciding who is a "Known Terrorist"...Suppose an unfriendly neighbor of yours reports you as a terrorist..Are you then a "Known Terrorist" for NSA/Patriot Act purposes? (with no independent court to protect your rights?)

LeonMSPT wrote:Anything not involving terrorism is "forbidden".

Yup....Just like "J-Walking or Speeding" is "Forbidden."

LeonMSPT wrote:Calls inside the United States, no matter who they're between, require a warrant to eavesdrop. If not prior, then very quickly afterward, in "exigent circumstances".

If you've been listening to some NSA whistle blowers, most monitored calls have never been brought b4 ANY court, FISA or other.

You simply can't trust an unsupervised/No Oversight Performed government.

So what happens if one of those "known terrorists" is a US citizen? All rights are null and void? And how did they "know" he was a terrorist unless they were already listening? And why did GWB grant all the telco's immunity if they weren't doing something illegal ie. warrantless wiretaps? And what is the purpose of AT&T room 614a?

jpete wrote:So what happens if one of those "known terrorists" is a US citizen? All rights are null and void? And how did they "know" he was a terrorist unless they were already listening? And why did GWB grant all the telco's immunity if they weren't doing something illegal ie. warrantless wiretaps? And what is the purpose of AT&T room 614a?

You're an interesting guy Jeff. I totally agree with what you just said & then, on another thread you say that Abe Lincoln was one of the worst Presidents we ever had????


Come on....Fess up........There are at least TWO of you using jpete as a nickname, right???

Devil505 wrote:

jpete wrote:So what happens if one of those "known terrorists" is a US citizen? All rights are null and void? And how did they "know" he was a terrorist unless they were already listening? And why did GWB grant all the telco's immunity if they weren't doing something illegal ie. warrantless wiretaps? And what is the purpose of AT&T room 614a?

You're an interesting guy Jeff. I totally agree with what you just said & then, on another thread you say that Abe Lincoln was one of the worst Presidents we ever had????


Come on....Fess up........There are at least TWO of you using jpete as a nickname, right???

If GWB was arresting members of Congress, shutting down newspapers and generally treating the Constitution like a "g-d piece of paper" just because people didn't agree with him, you'd be howling. But when Lincoln does it, you don't think it's that bad? Freeing the slaves was a tactical move on Lincoln's part. He didn't care about them either way. The south was financing the war by selling to Europe. Freeing the slaves deprived the south of it's labor force. No cotton/tobacco equals no money/weapons. Ask your self this. If the war was about slavery would the Emancipation Proclamation come before the start of the Civil War not after?

jpete wrote:If GWB was arresting members of Congress, shutting down newspapers and generally treating the Constitution like a "g-d piece of paper" just because people didn't agree with him, you'd be howling. But when Lincoln does it, you don't think it's that bad? Freeing the slaves was a tactical move on Lincoln's part. He didn't care about them either way. The south was financing the war by selling to Europe. Freeing the slaves deprived the south of it's labor force. No cotton/tobacco equals no money/weapons. Ask your self this. If the war was about slavery would the Emancipation Proclamation come before the start of the Civil War not after?

I'm no Lincoln scholar so I won't debate your arguments. I really just used Lincoln as an example of how you are very hard to peg/pigeonhole in terms of guessing where you will come down on any particular issue. Obviously you are an intelligent guy who is sometimes wrong on an issue (when you disagree with me) ....& sometimes right (correct) on others (when you agree with me!)

jpete wrote:If GWB was arresting members of Congress, shutting down newspapers and generally treating the Constitution like a "g-d piece of paper" just because people didn't agree with him, you'd be howling. But when Lincoln does it, you don't think it's that bad? Freeing the slaves was a tactical move on Lincoln's part. He didn't care about them either way. The south was financing the war by selling to Europe. Freeing the slaves deprived the south of it's labor force. No cotton/tobacco equals no money/weapons. Ask your self this. If the war was about slavery would the Emancipation Proclamation come before the start of the Civil War not after?

I've been thinking about the "Lincoln-haters" too. But which is it that bugs you guys? Granting the slaves (and, make no mistake, despite his tactical recalcitrance in the early days of his Presidency, Lincoln was an abolitionist) their Constitutional rights, or suspending habeas corpus during the war (when the Capital was situated below the Mason-Dixon line)?

Or something else?

That's funny. I was just thinking the same thing about you!

Stockingfull, my issue with Lincoln is with him starting the war in the first place. What gave him that right? The Declaration of Independence says the when the government no longer serves the people, we have a "duty" to alter or abolish it. The south felt the Federal goverment was no longer acting on it's behalf and tried to leave. Lincoln forced them to stay. He had no right. If Obama declares war on New Hampshire, Montana, or Hawaii because they want to secede, would you agree or disagree with him?

jpete wrote:If GWB was arresting members of Congress, shutting down newspapers and generally treating the Constitution like a "g-d piece of paper" just because people didn't agree with him, you'd be howling. But when Lincoln does it, you don't think it's that bad? Freeing the slaves was a tactical move on Lincoln's part. He didn't care about them either way. The south was financing the war by selling to Europe. Freeing the slaves deprived the south of it's labor force. No cotton/tobacco equals no money/weapons. Ask your self this. If the war was about slavery would the Emancipation Proclamation come before the start of the Civil War not after?

The civil war started as a measure to preserve the Union which was Lincoln's constitutional duty. You are exactly right on all points; it was a tactical move to free the slaves. It also ingratiated Lincoln with the northern urban media, which was liberal then too. It gave them sustenance for the war effort.

I do believe that Lincoln was a highly moral man and used the opportunity to do good. It was a win-win situation and he knew it. But, you are absolutely correct, in the beginning there was no emancipation proclamation nor any duty on his part to free the slaves. He stated that if he could have preserved the union without freeing the slaves, he would have done that if war could have been avoided. It was a moral dilemma for him, no doubt.

We almost agree Mike(or is it Gerry?). I DON'T think Lincoln had any right or responsibily to "protect the union." The states formed the Federal government. Not the other way around. Name any organisation besides La Cosa Nostra that you can join voluntarily but are not allowed to quit. And if the Declaration of Independence says we have the right and "duty" to "alter or abolish" the government if it no longer meets our needs, where does the president get the authority to stop us? Other than that, we agree 100%.

Lincoln wasn't flying under false colors. He'd made his "house divided cannot stand" speech in Springfield in June 1858. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln%27s_House_Divided_Speech He made a famous speech at Cooper Union in NYC -- which actually put him on the map as a national political figure -- on Feb 27, 1860. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooper_Union_speech So he made his positions on both slavery and maintaining the Union clear long before the war started, and before he was elected.

The reason Lincoln's predecessors, Buchanan, Pierce, Fillmore, et al, rank so low among historians is that they didn't solve the slave problem in a time when the new territories were being established and they had to be either slave or free jurisdictions. It had festered so long it could no longer be avoided. Would there have to be a war over each new territory's status?

And don't forget, the secession of the South began before he took the oath of office in March 1861.

Suspension of habeas was necessary because, um, the Capital wasn't in Boston, or some other "safe" northern location. But it worked out in the end; do you know what Arlington Nat'l Cemetery used to be?

I've never understood this complaint about Lincoln and the Civil War. There are only two ways to look at it:

1) The union was intended to be perpetual and secession illegal, and so saying they are seceding is to engage in rebellion and become reasonable targets for law enforcement and to have the rebellion quashed, particularly once military action was taken against Ft. Sumter and a number of other federal forts.

2) The notion that any union or confederation is perpetual is pretty lame. We acknowledge the reality of the situation, several states seceded from the union and formed their own confederation of states, their own country with its own capital. At this point it was entirely within the rights of the US to engage in open war with the new country, retake their lands, and incorporate it back into the US, again especially after federal lands and facilities were attacked.

Lincoln was of the first school of thought. President Buchanan before him was also of the first school of thought, but he didn't believe it was within the rights of the constitution to attack a state in open rebellion against the country, which seems like a bit of a logical dilemma. Of course, he didn't have to really deal with the secession problem for more than a couple months, so I guess we can forgive him for not having a logically consistent framework for how to deal with things.

Personally, I subscribe to the second school of thought. I think it is more realistic and accepting of practical truths.

Also, while you are right that the Civil War was not fought over any proactive interest in radical emancipation of slaves, it was indeed fought about slavery as a practice and what its future in the US would be. Lincoln was against slavery on a moral basis and prior to his election spoke in support of it being abolished over time, but he was not in favor of forcibly (through law or otherwise) ending slavery in the southern slave states on any immediate timetable. The problem was predominantly about southern state's fears about slavery slowly "going out of style" by virtue of the pattern of western territories and the non-slave states not being willing to grant or enforce slave property laws. The new territories were predominantly being founded as non-slave states, much to the dismay of the slave states. They saw the practice of slavery crumbling in the long run if it was not expanded into use in the new states. And despite all the "states rights" rhetoric used to wrap the slave ownership issue, the slave states were very much in favor of federal laws and enforcement in all the states of various slave property rights. Slave owners who traveled with their slaves into non-slave states wanted their slave ownership rights protected despite the laws against slavery in those states, they wanted escaped slaves in non-slave states to be considered slaves still and thus returned to their owners, and various other measures.

The south saw the end to slavery coming, inexorably, at some point in the future and in the near term they saw their property interests in slaves being ignored by the other states and in federal law enforcement and their power to project slavery into the new territories limited. So they seceded, trying to head off fate and determine their own slave owning destinies without Republican/Northern interruption.

As for the post-war claims of it being about states rights, not specifically slavery... Much of this is given legs to stand on only by the passage of a number of laws during the war, which were not about slavery and had been being blocked by the southern state delegations for some time prior to their secession. Some laws were passed due to the war which were also against a state's rights perspective, such as the imposition of a federal income tax to pay for the war. To claim the principle reason for the war was these other laws and issues besides slavery, however, is revisionism, plain and simple.

The south was fighting a losing battle, in every sense, when it came to slavery. Perhaps the Civil War could have been avoided, but given the base issues at play with regard to slavery and the rather inciting act of mass secession... it was going to happen, either according to the first or second school of thought.